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Final(ly) I’m done with J226!

Elizabeth Sanchez, taking a break from her J226 final to take a picture on PhotoBooth.

Skills I mastered in J226:

I don’t consider myself a very tech-savvy person, so to be enrolled in a class that would require me to acquire news skills within the digital world was bit nerve racking. Now, that the end has come I am glad to have learned a plethora of new skills along with three specific ones that I believe I was able to master. My first skill would have to be tweeting, although I had used twitter before I began the Digital News Gathering course I was unaware of the significance the various different components that twitter has to the readability of your tweet. For example, I learned how to correctly use hash-tags whenever possible, to increase the number of places my tweet may show up when users search for a particular topic. The second skill I was able to master was audio. Before this course I had never taken audio files and compiled them together to create one interview. I was able to figure out how to properly fade my music into my interviews as well as adjust the volumes of the audio all while creating a steady flow throughout the piece. Lastly, the third skill that I believe I mastered was video. Once, I learned the concept of the wide, medium and close up shots in a video and their significance for adding a good look to the piece I was able to incorporate my creative abilities along with the assignment guidelines that were required and incorporate audio to my videos. Although, I know there is still more to learn about digital newsgathering practices I am happy to leave this course having mastered three particular skills that I believe will help my journalistic career in the future.

Overall, after all of the assignments that I completed for J226 I have to say that my video for a commute story has to be the work that I am most proud of. This video, which I produced and edited was the first time I have ever created a video. I’m happy with my finished product, because it is exactly how I envisioned it.

Chart on adult use of the internet:

This chart was produced using data from a study that examined the percentage of adult internet users and those who used social networking sites. The study was a conducted to examine the percentages of adult internet users that use the internet as a significant source of health information in the U.S. I chose to put this particular data into a chart because I was surprised that although there are many adult online social networking users, I was surprised to find out that such a low percentage of those people have used these sites to help raise money for a good cause or to even raise awareness about a health related issue. Usually, people are always so willing to donate to causes benefiting health issues, it shocked me to find out that with so many internet users not many are willing to do so online.

MOS: “What do you think of the media coverage of the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton? (Was it adequate, too little or too much?)”.

This MOS interview was created using different interviews of San Francisco State University students, who expressed their thoughts and reactions after they were asked: “What do you think of the media coverage of the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton? (Was it adequate, too little or too much?)”. The names of the interviewees in order of appearance are; Tom Garcia (Senior), Caitlin Olsen (Senior), Kelly Goff (Senior), Chris Haire (Senior), Meghan Dubitsky (Senior).